Several titles of note (long with review excerpts) from the recent issue of Booklist:

Maps and Legends: Essays on Reading and Writing along the Borderlands by Michael Chabon: "Chabon zestfully praises the many allures of genre fiction and celebrates writers, among them Vonnegut and Byatt, who infuse their fiction with “the Trickster spirit of genre-bending and stylistic play.� He offers a fresh and affecting take on Arthur Conan Doyle and pays witty and provocative tribute to M. R. James, a seemingly serene British author of superb horror and ghost stories. Norse myths, Will Eisner, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road are all are interpreted with acuity and vigor. And then there are Chabon’s hilarious and puckish personal essays about his early writing misadventures and evolving sense of Jewishness."

Chabon is always entertaining - I'd like to see what he does with the essay format. (Oh - and it's from McSweeneys!)

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley: "For those for whom the publication of new work by David Rakoff or Sarah Vowell would be a literary event equivalent with the announcement of an eighth Harry Potter novel, the release of Crosley’s debut collection of keenly insightful personal essays should have similar impact. The New York Times, NPR, and Village Voice contributor’s take on everything from volunteering to vegetarianism, bridesmaid’s duties to baking disasters escorts readers on a raucous ride through the fluctuating minefield that is contemporary culture."

I do look forward to Sarah Vowell like kids pine for HP - so this is an author I've got to try out. Happily Vowell has a new book due out in October: The Wordy Shipmates. I might finally have a reason to care about the damn Pilgrims! (Bonus - have you seen Vowell's extra about playing Violet in The Incredibles? It's awesome!)

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lily Koppel: "In 2003, Koppel, a novice writer for the New York Times, stumbled upon an amazing discovery: the decades-old diary of a privileged teenaged Manhattanite penned between 1929 and 1934. Fascinated by entries detailing theater expeditions, shopping sprees, love interests, and grand ambitions, she put her journalistic skills to good use, tracking down the original owner of this faded and cracked red-leather treasure. Elated to discover 90-year-old Florence Wolfson alive, alert, and eager to share her memories of a bygone time and place, Koppel began interviewing Florence, interweaving the brief diary entries with more detailed personal anecdotes infused with the type of glamour and sophistication associated with a 1930s romantic comedy. After a front-page story appeared in the New York Times Sunday City section, interest in Florence’s fascinating story prompted the author to write a full-length book that works as both a biography and a spellbinding glimpse into a vanished era."

Okay that sounds amazing in so many ways I can't stand hardly stand it. From the original article in the NYT:

"With its tarnished latch unlocked, the diary lay silent for more than half a century inside an old steamer trunk, plastered with vintage travel stickers that evoke the glamorous golden age of ocean liner voyages. The trunk in turn languished in the basement of 98 Riverside Drive, an orange brick apartment house at 82nd Street, until October 2003, when the management decided it was time to clear out the storage area.

The trunk and its sisters were carted to a waiting Dumpster, and as is often the case in New York, trash and treasure were bedfellows. Some passers-by jimmied open the locks of the trunks and pried apart their sides, in search of old money. Others stared transfixed at the treasures spilling from the warped cedar drawers: a red kimono; a beaded rose flapper dress; a cloth-bound volume of Tennyson’s poems; the top half of a baby’s red sweater still hanging from its knitting needles. A single limp silk glove fluttered like a small flag."

Be sure to read the whole article - the last paragraph will speak to writers everywhere.

The House of Widows by Askold Meinyczuk: "Despite its modest page count (256 pages), this is a big novel. It’s about identity—personal, political, and tribal. It’s about fathers and sons and mothers and sons. It’s about love, war, duty, honor, betrayal, history, and politics—and the perils of each. Melnyczuk is a writer of great power, lyricism, and assurance, and he has created a large cast of compellingly complex characters, as well as vivid portraits of London, Vienna, and Ukraine. Hard to put down and harder to forget."

I love novels about people trying to learn more about their families - when done well, they are addictive.

The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford (I think everybody loves this one): "A schoolboy has vanished; a stranger has appeared; a prowler (possibly a pervert) is lurking about; and a librarian is losing her grip on reality. Keeping track of it all are several young chums, including the sixth-grade narrator; his older brother, Jim; and their sister, Mary, who may somehow be affecting what’s happening as she rearranges figures on the toy model of the community in her basement. Imagine a young-reader amateur-sleuth novel written by someone like Kafka, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of this one: surreal, unsettling, and more than a little weird."

I'm seriously thinking YA possibilities with that one - I'll keep ya posted.

The Truth Commissioner by David Park: "In this powerful novel, Irish author Park creates a fictional truth commission (modeled on the one in South Africa) to deal with the legacy of Ireland’s Troubles. Charged with healing the bitter divisiveness of the past, the Belfast commission’s first case involves the 1990 disappearance of 15-year-old Connor Walshe, a fatherless petty thief manipulated by the police into becoming an IRA informant. Soon bureaucrats from both sides of the conflict start applying pressure in an attempt to distance themselves from the inevitable fallout. In the days before he is called to testify, policeman James Fenton, Connor’s contact, is haunted by visions of the boy he put in harm’s way. Former IRA honcho turned respectable government official Francis Gilroy scrambles to keep his name out of the record, while Michael Madden, who joined the IRA when he was 18, sees the fragile peace he has made for himself start to crumble when IRA members turn up at his job. Park humanizes all the participants but never backs away from the dark crime at the heart of the narrative—his dispassionate recounting of Connor’s ordeal at the hands of the IRA is both chilling and heartbreaking."

The actual events surrounding the South African Truth Commission make the mere fictional idea of one in Northern Ireland very appealing. It got a starred review.

The White King by Gyorgy Dragoman: "Originally published in Hungarian in 2005, Dragomán’s debut explores the inner life of 11-year-old Djata as he navigates both the everyday epic adventures of childhood and the all-too-real brutalities of life in a totalitarian society (strongly resembling 1980s Romania). Djata is in many ways a normal kid: he likes soccer, gets distracted in school, and hoards small, meaningful items (like the chess piece that gives this novel its title). But the soccer field is contaminated with radiation, his teachers routinely threaten to break knees and smash skulls, and his father has gone missing, taken away in a van for political dissidence. As the casual violence endemic to adolescence is blurred with starkly adult acts of coercion and cruelty, Dragomán’s characters are drawn to secret, often stolen joys, such as an abandoned screening room. For Djata, coming-of-age means learning to lose things but also to find some sort of internal freedom amid society’s carnage. Though undeniably powerful in its politics, this book’s true beauty is its lucid prose and moments of dark hilarity."

And again a possible YA crossover title - this one just might open their eyes up to the larger world.

[Post pic of the actual red leather diary!]